Chocolate Abuelita and Stale Churros (with a side of grief)

I read somewhere, or someone told me, that parents go through a grieving process when their kids grow up. Specifically the teen years. And I thought, nope. Not me. First of all, A and I are so close, that we'll just get closer - or at least, I thought, that his teenage years would not look like the stereotypical boys'. Plus, I will be too proud of his stepping out in the world to grieve. I am above all this pyscho-babble. Right?

Wrong.

It is unbearably painful to watch A grow. Not bad pain, necessarilly. Not always, anyway. Sometimes I am in honest-to-god fear that I will explode as I swell with pride at my fine young man. (Fine against all odds, really, given where this child comes from.) Joy can hurt. Pride and love and empathy can hurt. A sweet, lovely hurt, but a deep hurt, nonetheless.

I am proud that he doesn't need me like he used to. It's what I have always wanted for him. But it hurts. His growing independence has left a huge unfillable gap in my entire identity. I'm still figuring out who I am when I'm not actively being his mom.

Probably for the best then that he's gone to live with his father for a while. Time to cut the proverbial apron strings... Ug. Why? Why does one have to cut the strings???

I was looking forward tonight to having A home and making him some hot chocolate the way I used to make it for my sisters. And I found churros at the store and eventhough the last thing that child needs is sugar, I was looking forward to the treat.

"Uh... do I have to come?" Squeek - I can't talk or breathe... I feel like I haven't seen him in months. No, of course you don't have to come. (I will NOT be that mom.) "Ok. Thanks. Love you mom." And I'm so devastated I can't say I love you back. I send him a text message... "Hung up before I could say I love you back!"

My over-the-top reaction and the immediate I-need-to-fix-it text message are an in-your-face clue that there is entirely too much hinging on this relationship... and maybe, just maybe, it's time to start the letting go phase of this stupid grieving process.

I make hot chocolate anyway. And I bite into the churros... which turn out to be stale. And I cry.

Just as I start to fall further and further into my grief sprial, my phone beeps. Text message from A: "Love u."

Whiplash. Again.

No matter how many times I tell myself that I'm not going to fall for it, that I'm not going to engage, inevitably I do. I get my heart broken and my stomach punched and my throat constricted and my hopes let down. Way down.

This is time number who-knows-what that the father of my child says something is going to happen a certain way and then changes his mind at the last effing minute. The past several times have had to do with whether or not A is finally going to move back home. He is. He's not. He is. He's not.

There are many days when I hit complete okayness with him not being home. I don't WANT him here, I think. Finally, some time to myself, I think. It's so much more serene without that boy here, I think. But THEN - the idea that he might move home creeps in and I soften and I can't wait, and I fool myself into thinking that by not physically preparing for him to be home I am also not emotionally preparing for him to come home. But I'm wrong. I am always preparing to have him come home. It's where he belongs. (Even though I know that I don't get to decide that. That, in fact, mother does not always know best)

I miss him. He is an extension of my being and I want him home. I want him to want to be home.

And I abhor R for bing so flighty and self-centered and self-serving. And completely oblivious.